Thursday afternoon, we did a walk around the campground. At one point we decided to look for the Alberta unit we had noticed when we drove in a week ago Monday. We found them, and, surprise, it was the truck with the Okotoks plate on the front we had seen coming out of China Farm last week. Fortunately, the lady was outside, so we got chatting, and in a while, her husband joined us. They have owned the site here for a few years, but have been traveling down for about 15 years, have done extensive traveling and boon-docking in the desert.
Friday, we went to Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. It is the largest oasis in the Mojave desert, and is named after ash tree groves. We started at the Visitor Center,
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| Diorama | |
did the .9 mi Crystal Spring boardwalk.
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| Butterflies |
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| pupfish |
Longstreet Cabin and spring
Devil's Hole (which is a detached unit of Death Valley National Park) which has the world's rarest fish, the Devils Hole pupfish, the smallest of the desert pupfish species.
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| Little Devil's Hole |
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| Access Control - you get to platform under the covered walkway |
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and Point of Rock Springs, where we only got an image of the pupfish in an extract from a movie.
Monday, we drove to Henderson, the long way through Indian Springs, since the high point that way is 3500 ft instead of 5500 going south from Pahrump, then east to Henderson. We stopped in Henderson, and replaced a tire on the trailer that had worn down on the outside corner, probably from following the front tire sharply around right turns. It only took about 20 minutes to get the tire done, but first had to wait for while for a truck unloading tires, then after it was done, to wait for another truck picking up used tires. Meanwhile, we picked up a few things in a store, then chatted to T-Mobile to find out whether their North American data roaming would work for us. No, because you have to show government issued US resident id to set up an account. Prepaid only, is allowed, but that only would give us T-Mobile data, not other cell providers. We arrived at Government Wash in Lake Mead NRA, where we have stayed a few times, including last fall. By then, the wind that the weather websites had warned about was starting. Good to be parked before it got too bad.
Tuesday, we stayed, since the wind warning was through this evening. The winds were intermittent, so we were able to do a 5 mi (return) walk in just under 3 hours, kind of east along the lake. Of course, we had to go down through several washes, and up over the ridges between them, heading toward a spot called Crawdad Cove on our Nevada Topo GPS map. The topo map must have been created a while ago, because it showed we walked through the lake most of the way once we got down off the plateu on which we are parked. We compared a couple of pictures with ones we took last spring on our way north, and it looks like the lake is a few feet higher than it was last year. Drought over, or just not as bad as it has been for the last few years? Probably needs quite a few years of better rainfall to get the reservoir back up to earlier levels.
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| Blue Phacelia? |
Wednesday we enjoyed the drive through Lake Mead Nat Rec Area. We stopped in Mesquite to stock up on a few things before hitting Utah. After shopping, we tried to phone the Sand Hollow Utah State Park, but couldn't find an option to actually talk to someone to see if any of the non-reservables sites. After wandering through the automated options a couple of times, we decided to just carry on. When we arrived at Sand Hollow, we found that there were no sites available. We phoned the KOA and got a site for a couple of nights. Then we talked to the lady at Sand Hollow, and found they do have some non-reservable sites available on Friday. So on Friday, we will try to call again to see if any sites are still available.
Thursday morning, we drove into St. George to pick up some supplies, including a smoke detector to replace the one in the trailer that died the last time we used the propane range. Then we had a nice meal of fish & chips and ribs at Black Bear Diner. We picked up propane at Pilot, the most we have paid for it anywhere, only to see that they have a propane tank here at the KOA. They didn't list it on their information sheet (or at least we didn't see it, and it was hiding behind a hill on the way out. Before leaving St. George, we checked with a few RV parks to see if they have space for tomorrow night for a week, and might have one possibility.
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